Relationship between the components of product/service quality and the customers’ emotions and satisfaction
Abstract: The purpose of this
paper is to study the links between quality and consumers’ emotions and
eventually with their satisfaction. There is mounting evidence that, while
quality evaluation may be strictly cognitive, satisfaction gauges customers’
emotions towards the product/service provider’s performance. The existing
approaches used in measuring quality have certain limitations. This study
introduces two components of total quality structure – quality of design and
quality of conformance – for analysis of the link between quality and customer
emotions. Undergraduate college students
were surveyed in regard to four scenarios for food establishments. Respondents
were asked to select, from a pre-tested list of emotions, those arising from
these scenarios. The equality of means of the valence and the intensity of
emotions among the four scenarios were tested using ANOVA and Scheffe paired
comparisons. The results show that there is a significant relationship between
possible combinations of two quality dimensions and customers’ affective
responses in terms of both their valence and intensity. Important managerial
implications are discussed.
Author: Gavriel Meirovich,
Nisreen Bahnan
Journal Code: jptindustrigg080011
